Someone once said – all the best stories ever told were stories of revenge.

The French novelist Alexandre Dumas is rightfully called the father of genre literature and the creator of a bunch of adventure fiction tropes that live to this day. His work marked the 19th century po[...]

On January 11th 2017, exactly a year and a day after David Bowie returned to his home planet, my father passed away.

He was suffering from a horrid, ugly and painful illness. It lasted too long, hurt too much. It turned him into someone I struggled to recognize. I like to think [...]

AFTERWORD – THE TOSHIZO HIJIKATA PROJECT

So you made it through my overly long retelling of the life and deeds of my favorite history’s tragic hero, Toshizo Hijikata. Congratulations – and thank you for sticking with me. It’s been a wild ride – this is a story that mean[...]

THE STORY OF TOSHIZO HIJIKATA – EPILOGUE: A MEMORY (THE LIVING AND THE DEAD)

The short-lived Ezo Republic fell exactly one week after Toshizo Hijikata’s death.

The President, Admiral Takeaki Enomoto, wanted to go down fighting – but Keisuke Otori, the Ministe[...]

THE STORY OF TOSHIZO HIJIKATA – FINAL CHAPTER: THE HATAMOTO OF EZO

Take a look at a map of Japan. See where Hokkaido is?

It’s the northernmost island of the Land of the Rising Sun, much more scarcely populated than the rest of the country. Its climate is rough,[...]

THE STORY OF TOSHIZO HIJIKATA – CHAPTER SIX: THE LOST


Only a few months before the Battle of Toba-Fushimi, in the winter of 1867, the Shogun Yoshinobu Tokugawa did a very special thing for the Shinsengumi: he gave every single major member of the group the title of hata[...]